Bringing Hope to Families

The Mum Show: Bringing Hope to Families

Dr. Craig von BuseckBy Dr. Craig von Buseck7 Minutes

Craig von Buseck: Today with the Internet, parents are actually overwhelmed with information. So tell me how The Mum Show is breaking through the clutter to bring biblical answers to help parents today.

Marina Magdalena: The Mum Show will not dictate a parenting style. So the three women hosts and our guests usually all have different styles of parenting. Outside of our Christian values, we will have different values in our homes – things that mark who we are and what our family identities are. We’re really OK with the fact that everyone’s a little bit different. Audience members are free to watch The Mum Show and be OK, knowing that your values remain. We’re not trying to push people’s family culture in any direction.

The idea of The Mum Show is to say, “Let’s gather around, see what the Bible says, and understand a little bit about child development.” We talk a lot about what is going on in the brain, which is just the most incredible creation. It’s vital to be able to understand how the brain changes for children, and then how it changes for teenagers. It’s also important to know how our brains change and connect to our children, and then how those two things work together.

We really try to understand the actual biology behind what’s happening to give parents the tools they need.

For example, a parent might say, “My teenager is rude, and obnoxious, and not a very nice human being. I don’t know how to communicate with them anymore.” If you dive into what is going on in the teenage brain, you might turn around and say – “My teenager is confused, and worried, and panicked…”

CVB: And quite normal!

Marina: “And normal! And I need to go connect with them right now because they need me.” One of the questions we are asking ourselves is, “What knowledge can we empower our audience with regarding child development?”

The other side of that question is, “What knowledge can we empower our audience with about God? About building your family on Jesus? About having at the center?”

I think the one theme that runs through The Mum Show is that wherever you are in your journey, whatever has happened up until this point, with Jesus there is always hope. There is always possibility for restoration. You may be watching the program and we are talking about the importance of early childhood bonding and connection. You may think, “I missed that. I know that for whatever reason, that didn’t happen.” We will always come back to the point of pausing to look at God’s word so we can encourage you to have Jesus at the heart of what’s happening in this family. We want to help restore this family so that from this moment on they are walking in a more positive place together.

I think that with so much information on the Internet, one of the problems we have that can turn parents against each other is when they say, “No, it’s my way or the highway.” All of a sudden, there are divisions among different parenting styles that really don’t matter that much. We believe the heart of it is to build your family on Jesus, do your best to understand what’s going on, and then walk out that journey together.

CVB: What are some episodes in these last two years that stand out to you from The Mum Show?

Marina: One of the episodes that felt really strong for us was when we talked about changing the spiritual narrative of your family. We talked about when you see where you come from and it is different from what you want to build. It’s about stopping to say, “How can we change the narrative of our family? How can we intercept things? We don’t have to just accept that because it’s always been this way, it’s always going to stay this way.”

We actually had my mother join us on that episode.

CVB: The Mum of the Mum!

Marina: Yeah! And this just brought the tears out for all of us. We were all just really emotional just understanding with gratitude the grace of God and the way He intervenes to help us move our families closer and closer to Him, really.

The other episode was called “Kids with Attitude.” We had so much fun, and such giggle, because everyone was honest, saying “Sometimes my kid’s got an attitude.”

In the United Kingdom, the secularist narrative is the default narrative – it’s what we assume everyone believes, unless someone is going to boldly express themselves otherwise. We just feel so led by God to offer something different into that narrative. To start saying, “You know, you don’t have to think that. You don’t have to just go along with that. There is actually another line of thought out there.”

I found that when people have children, they don’t know where to put all this huge emotion. They’re not used to carrying so much passion within them. Then you come along and say, “Actually, that passion fits really well in the Kingdom of God. That passion makes absolute sense when you start to realize who God is.” Then for this part of the audience, pieces start fitting together.

It was never our sole intention to reach a non-Christian audience. But it excites me so much every time people who don’t know Jesus come to me and say, “It’s amazing. My mind is blown. I never saw it like that.”


To learn more about “The Mum Show” and its upcoming airtimes on Inspiration TV click here